This one takes us back to The Perfect Partner.

“Well, here we are, Spock. Tambian 3 where it all started.”

Spock looked at Jim, and furrowed his brows, trying to decide exactly what ‘all’ was with regard to it starting on Tambian 3.

They were here, on this planet, once more for shore leave, because the crew liked it quite well, and Jim liked indulging them. It had been nearly three years since their last voyage here, but Spock, who remembered most everything, could not exactly say he could remember starting anything there.

“Captain?”

That earned him Jim’s saucy smile, which Spock had to admit was one of his favorites.

“Yes, Commander?”

“What exactly started here?”

Jim laughed. “You and me.”

Spock outright frowned. “Negative. We began far before our shore leave here three years ago.”

“I don’t mean that way. Sure we’d been…fucking. But we weren’t quite there yet. You wanted me to be a Vulcan woman, remember?”

“I did not.”

Jim rolled his eyes. He looked around the main port area, which was full of revelers partaking in all that the resort had to offer. It was July on the Terran calendar and since Tambian 3 catered so much to visitors from there, many places were illogically decorated for ‘Christmas in July’. It was one of the reasons Jim wanted to come in July as they did a big thing for it there and a lot of the crew was quite excited.

Jim, too, Spock knew.

Jim reached for Spock’s hand, tentatively, like he thought Spock would refuse. He would not.

He closed his fingers around the palm of Jim’s hand and let his mate lead him down the little walkway to the beach they’d last visited while there.

Jim stopped just before they would reach the wet sand. He looked out to the sea.

“I told you I loved you here, for the first time. Do you remember?”

“Of course.”

“And we admitted that though we were hardly perfect, either of us, we were perfect for each other.”

Spock nodded, his throat tightening at the memory. “I was…concerned I had messed up everything. Nothing and no one had ever been more important than you were, are, to me, and with thoughtless words…”

“No.” Jim squeezed his hand. “Let’s not worry about all that. I just…this place is special because you told me you love me and I told you and it’s just…now we’re bonded and married and I…for me…for us it started here.”

Spock met Jim’s gaze, held it, felt the love flow through their bond and into everything they were.

“Yes,” Spock agreed. “It started here.”